Dhul Hijjah The Uphill Climb

In today's brief goodbye, I'd like to speak with you about some ideas that belong to Silicon Valley. But first and foremost, I'd like to express how happy I am to actually have an opportunity to spend some moments before the football with Sheikh Mustafa, I want to share a memory with you. This is back in the days of Warren Street in the 90s. It was the first time I actually gave a hug by in the city, actually, the second, the first time was on 43rd in the UN, and then I was asked to give a hug by here. And I was extremely nervous. I was 19 years old, and the person who calmed my nerves was him. And he said, it's going to be okay. And but he didn't realize the reason I was nervous was

because he was there. Because I used to come listen to his called bus all the time. And you had to come very early to attend a school bus because otherwise you'd be praying on the street. So I used to come extra early to listen to him. And he's one of May Allah reward him for all the work that he's done. And all the service that he's given to this community of the dedication that he has Allah preserve him and his health, and given the best to him and his family. And also like to start by acknowledging and making dua for all of those that have spent so much of their life savings and have made the journey to hudge. This year, that is not an easy journey to make, not financially, not

emotionally, not physically, many of them that are older and age that Allah did not give them a chance to go their entire life are going for the first time. Many are waiting for many, many years. And you know, it's actually relatively easier for people in the United States to even go to Hajj relatively. But there are other places in the world where you don't get enough visas and people have to wait 2030 years before they can get a chance. And they have to get in the waiting list. You know when they're maybe 1516 years old, and they won't get a chance until they're 4550 years old to be able to go and that's a reality for people in the world. So those that Allah has given the

opportunity to go, may Allah azza wa jal make that a means of forgiveness for them, that all of their sins are forgiven and they have a fresh start when they come back. And Allah bring them back home to their family safely and with a new sense of renewed sense of demand and commitment to Allah azza wa jal and this beautiful Deen of Ibraheem Alehissalaam

so what I wanted to talk to you about today is a really powerful expression in the Quran. Very short sutras in the Quran, they they say many things, but they say them in very few words. And so little Bella does an example of that. At the end of skeletal ballad, Allah azza wa jal describes a person who did not believe. But instead of saying my Iman, he didn't believe Allah describes not the belief, but the result of that belief. So sometimes, I want you and I to think about Iman, our faith as a seed. And that seed gives rise to a plant. What you see above the ground is the plant and what is under the ground is the seed. So now Allah is talking about what plant never came out because the

Eman wasn't there. There's the seed wasn't there, therefore the plant never emerged. Now what is it that should be the fruit or the plant the flower that buds from this ima and that's what Allah is talking about here, by way of an imagery and the imagery you would think in other places in the Quran. This imagery the result of Eman we would think should be worship. Right the result of image should be for example for LA sadaqa la sala right so he didn't accept the truth he didn't pray. worshipping Allah had you know, refining your your commitment to Allah azza wa jal removing all elements of Schilke from your heart having complete reliance on Allah, those are all manifestations

of iman. But here the manifestation of Eman is very different. Like Allah is highlighting a different dimension of what it means to be a believer, and he's criticizing the disbeliever. And you will think when Allah criticizes the disbeliever he's going to criticize their ship, their kufr, their heedlessness their sins and all of that stuff, but he's describing something else entirely. And the language that he uses is pretty remarkable and interesting. He starts with FANUC, the hammer Lacava very unique phrasing in the Quran. It's not used anywhere else. And this phrase is commonly in Easy English translations, they'll say and he he did not scale or he did not climb up the hill.

Right? A laptop is actually the end of a, you know, an elevated peak. So to scale a mountain or to go up and up and up in elevation. And when you reach the top of it, the moon to have it that's called an acaba. So the edge of a cliff even can be called an acaba. So that's the first thing he didn't reach there but the word use is if the hammer and the hammer will give you some things about its meaning. It actually has to do with when you go and you enter into something difficult like if there's a narrow entrance and you barely squeeze in, that's actually called the hand and if the hammer soft was used for if people are lined up together and you're trying to squeeze and make your

way in, you know, that's called if the ham so it has to do with is the ham, it has to do with heavy traffic. It has to do with tightness and congestion. Where's the scene where that happens?

I want you to use your imagination, people are fighting each other and squeezing into a narrow space, right. So what when this happens, for example, when there's a long line at hedge, for example, and people are trying to get through a narrow passage, right, or you can imagine, there's, you know, people are crazy about concerts or ticket sales or whatever, and they're going to sell out. And everybody shows up early, like, you know, Black Friday in this country, that's, they have about the same devotion as Muslims, that hudge where people do not fall off of the mall and the other waiting are doing liquor outside, they put the pm will lay, they put their benches outside the

store, and they're going to wait for the doors to open so they can rush and when they're rushing in and fighting each other squeezing through the door. That's actually if they haven't people do that, when they are competing with each other for some kind of monopoly or for some kind of benefits, right? You'd see that kind of a rush in the stock market, you'd see that kind of a rush in the kinds of environments where bidding is happening, and people are pushing and shoving to get, you know, and this is this scene is always associated with people getting something and if I don't get it, somebody else is going to take it, you know, somebody else is going to just grab it. So this imagery

is associated with the word IQ. The Harmon Allah uses that word to describe this, this image. And this image is this person did not compete with others. Whoever was describing did not compete with others didn't fight with others didn't rush to go up at the top of the mountain. Didn't didn't want to do it didn't want to compete. So Allah is in this image, you're describing something, people are competing for the wrong thing. They're running towards something else. There's a there's a door open this way, and everybody's interested. They're flooding towards it. And there's another mountain up there. It takes an effort to go up the mountain, right? And nobody's making the effort to go and

nobody's competing. And the language also tells you this mountain that Allah wants you to climb and wants me to climb. This one was the word the one worth competing for. Everybody should have been fighting each other to reach the top of this one. But they're going in the other direction. In fact, what is that other direction is mentioned earlier on in the Surah. You have Hulu back to Milan levada he says I blew a lot of money man you know how much I spent on this TV? You know, you know how much I get paid for those rims. You know how much I got that car for? Yeah, I just got this the kitchen redone you know how much I spent on that like, they love talking about how much they spent

love talking about you these shoes or bro don't even ask. You know, they want to make sure people know that okay, this is the brand and this is how much I spent on it. This is how much I spent on the vacation. This is how much I spent on the house this is what I spent on the car this is what I spent on this the suit these clothes etc etc. Always talking about how much money I've flown in of course on haram things in the past to write on alcohol and gambling and all that stuff. But even other things, just loves talking about how much money has been spent has been thrown out there Kulu Allah Tamala lumada on the on that's easy. People rush towards those things, right? And they rush

towards making money so they can spend the big money their dream man I want to make this much money so I can make that get that vacation get that car blow money on this blow money on that that's what they're thinking about. On the flip side is a mountain that goes up this is the imagery Allah uses. But there's another twist in this imagery before we unlock it. And that twist is very beautiful. In the Arabic language you don't use LA for a felon MALDI you don't say La La vida, you say Marfa Allah or you say let me have fun. So the expected language is luck the hammer or you say let me actor him and Acaba. But Allah says, luck to him. Allah Allah actor Hamanaka he uses the law so that we Yun

and the Mufasa rune started discussing, why would Allah use the law here? What is it doing? And there's multiple ways to understand it, but one of them I will highlight to you that law is used for the past tense, when there's two of them together, like for law sadaqa when a Salah is to law together. So when you say law for what a nurse or whatever, you put two verbs together, you can put large twice, so they assume there's a hub here for lokta Hamanaka, Walla, Amman, or phenomena well after Hamanaka. In other words, there's going up the hill, neither did he go up the hill, and therefore nor did he actually believe there's an implicit wording here and you can tell it's there

because of the law and Bulaga they call this atashi it's a technique used to make someone think whoa, what what's the law doing here? This is the kind of stuff that disappears in the English translation. You don't even know something special happened here, but it's happening in the language of the Quran. So Allah is not just talking about going up a hill. He's saying Whoever did not go up this hill failed to show that they actually had him on inside. The reason that this never came out is because there was no emotion inside and so much of that

can be learned just from the use of the law and fall of the hammer laptop. And then Allah Himself says, So what do you think I'm talking about? What is this top of the hill that people should be competing for pushing each other for to get to the top? Why am I rockin with acaba? What would give you any idea what that cover is? What would that top Hill be? Is it is it the 100 every night? Is it fasting every day? Is it what worship is this and he starts Sakura Coubertin. In Peacock, the word the word is used, when you grab something from someone that is not letting go and ask Will I see they say, he grabs like if I'm if I'm holding on, like you're holding your phone, right and somebody

comes, tries to nap your phone off your hands, and you've got a tight grip, and they're pulling it off of you. This is actually this act of pulling out of pulling something out of somebody else's hand. This is actually called in peacock and are the verb patka. And from it the word raka after what it means is the back of the neck. This was language use and Aqaba was used for slaves or prisoners of war because they used to put chains on the back of their neck. And the changes, they used to use the chain to pull on them, right prisoners of war. And then it started getting used for people that are buried under debt. Because their necks are hanging down. And when you when you pay

somebody's debt off, you've released their neck. So they can in a sense, hold their head up high again, they can do that. And this became an expression by and large for anybody stuck in a difficult situation. What Allah is saying here is the first sign of climbing up the hill is people should have been looking for other people in around them that are stuck in a really bad situation. Their neck is hanging low. They're enslaved and ancient slavery used to be something else. modern slavery comes with mortgages and credit cards and medical bills. And you know, insurance and you know, absorbing tickets, you know, like you forgot to pay 25 cents in the meter and you got a $250 ticket that's

and the guy barely makes you know minimum wage. And there's already already cutter up for the on the on the tunnels and the totals right there already robbing you without you knowing it. And all of that is actually burying people into debt, burying them in difficulty. They're barely getting by, and to help someone release someone from the from the choke around their neck. That's the first sign people should have been competing. Who can I help.

And this is this is really important. Because when you and I live in a capitalist mindset, you know what that is? Look out for number one. You better save up because you got to get this car you better save up because you have these plans. You You Why can't you just get that and even people around you you're about to give somebody some charity, and a family member comes in says what you don't have kids. We don't have to get a new fridge. We're gonna have to do this. We don't Why are you spending on them? No, but they're in trouble. Yeah, everybody's in trouble. Maybe tomorrow, you'll be in trouble. You don't have to be so generous, okay, somebody else can help them. They're not dying.

It's okay. They'll survive. Right? So well, people will come or maybe you'll tell yourself, it's okay. I don't have to help someone in difficulty because it's alright, they'll survive. It's okay. You know, instead, we making excuses to not help someone. These are the people who would be fighting each other who's gonna get to help that person first. This is an uphill climb. It's not an easy thing to do. In fact, the imagery was used at like ignore our shoulders in a hurry. But then we he says this imagery was used because it's, it requires a lot of machine cut and knifes. It's really hard on a person to get to the point where the way they're competing for things they enjoy. They're

competing for giving somebody help. They're jumping, leaping at the opportunity to help somebody. This is a sign of human Takota Coubertin, Tom and Fiona Minzy must cover 10 Beautiful words, the first two he says are feeding any kind of feeding. In a day when in a time when it's difficult even for you it's it's difficult to even come up with a full meal, you take that half meal, and you cut it into two quarters and you give one of those away. Like he says in another place in the Quran where you throw in Allah and fusi him well, you cannot be him Kasasa when he was talking about the Tsar, Allah said they give other people preference over themselves even when they're starving. So

this is the second quality he mentioned. Just give somebody something to eat. Give them a little bit. You're not gonna make them rich, but if you can just share a little bit of help with somebody else. And notice he didn't even mention who. It's an open ended thing. It's common. It's only man that I'm only miskeen to live in Cuba. He didn't mention why. Because there's an openness. You never know who's gonna need help. People that could have been doing okay yesterday, and then somebody COVID happened, somebody got sick, they lost their job. Now they can't pay the rent. They don't look like beggars. They look like they did yesterday. They looked

Totally normal. But if you can tell from the look on their faces, something is going on, something's wrong. You know, daddy, for whom BC My home is Aluna, NASA al halfa. You recognize those people by the look on their faces. They don't go around begging people, they're not standing outside holding a sign. And you know, any money can help. They're not going to do that they have dignity. So we have to recognize them, I will try them and feel them in the Masaba. And then he adds, who are these people that you should be giving? The first one he mentioned is your team and the Makarova, the orphan that is in close family relations. You know, you would think Allah would mentioned the

hardest thing first. And you would think intuitively, helping your relatives is easy. Right, the relatives come first. So you would think of your relatives first, but the reality of it is, it's actually a lot easier to give to a beggar on the street, someone you don't know, it's a lot harder to give inside your own family, because family comes with a lot of politics. Why did you give this one? Why didn't you give that one? How Oh, so you want to give your side of the family you don't want to give my side of the family?

Oh, so you Oh, you think that's they're worth it, they enter you're gonna hear a lot. So you're like, you know what, I'm just going to send wire my money to a different continent. Y'all do whatever you want to do with that. But I'm not going to give my family because if I give something in my family, I'm going to have trouble from my in laws, I'm going to have trouble from my mother, because I gave my father's side of the family or I'm gonna have trouble from my father, because I give to my mother's side of the family. And so and then, of course, inside family, there's also feuds and fights. So when you have fights with somebody, you you fought your uncle, you fought your

cousin, whoever, right, now that you fought them, it doesn't matter that they're your team. I hate that guy. I'm not going to help him. Why would I help him remember what he said to me that other year, I still remember the insults at that wedding, I'm never going to help this guy, you, you hold a grudge. Because you know, the people you deal with the most are the people that agitate you the most. The people that you spend the most time with are the people that get on your nerves get on my nerves the most. We can be friends, until we go on a road trip, then everything I do is gonna annoy you and everything you do is gonna annoy me because we spend more time with each other family spends

a lot of time with each other. You know, for eat, we're like, oh eat, the whole family is gonna get together six hours later, like when are these people going home?

I can't deal with this, you know, because family is hard to deal with. Those are difficult relationships. And inside of our families, there are people who need help, even doesn't matter how I feel about them. It doesn't matter if I liked their personality or not. It doesn't matter what I feel about the previous fight that's carrying on for the last 20 years, or the generations that none of that's important. This is a difficult thing to climb. You have to overcome your personal bias. You have to overcome your anxiety of what people are going to say. You have to overcome the pressure maybe inside your own family, I have to come over that pressure in my own family and still help

someone who I believe should be helped. That regardless of who's gonna say what this is your team and Makarova, and then your so your demons or merkabah or Myskina dama Traba or even a miskeen someone and miskeen is an interesting word Arab linguists say that the word miskeen actually is a combination. It comes from Masaka and second together. So it's mascara. It's actually philosophy and philosophy together become rubbery. So what this means is someone who's stuck in a situation and they can't get out of that situation. That's what a miskeen is. Myskina is not just a poor person, a Myskina someone's stuck in a difficult situation, like for example, somebody was driving an Uber or

a taxi. That's how they were making their living, right. And then they developed an eye infection. Now their eyes are not their eyesight is no good. They can't drive anymore. Right. And so now there's they want to be able to work, but they're in a medical situation where they can't earn that living anymore. This would become a miskeen somebody who's stuck and is not able to help themselves out of a situation. And so he says people that are stuck, they can spiral down to the point where they are that Matoba they are in the dirt. They're in the dirt. What that means is what they're they're humiliated. They're not covered anymore. Maybe they're becoming homeless, because throb

comes when you're outside and traveling right? They're losing the roof over their head. These are the people that Allah azza wa jal wants us to look out for, and say and actually compete in looking out for them in our personal lives. I want you to also think about when the Quran was revealed, we have to always remember when the Quran was revealed, there were no websites where you can say let me look for a you know, a charity organization which has pictures of orphans and then I can give, you know, make a wire transfer and that's, that's all new right? When, when these I

came down there were no charity organizations that were holding fundraisers for this event or that yes, helpful football was there. But by and large in society, you, you had to know your neighbor. You had to know your family. How did you know people are in difficulty you talk to them, you interacted with them, you live with them, you had a sensitive eye towards those things. So we have to have that kind of connection. This is actually connected. This idea is connected to Silla to him. It's connected to family ties being together. Like if you haven't talked to your family in a long time, then you don't know what they're struggling with. It's been a few years, you just call them

every way a robotic. Okay. And that's it, you're done. See and see you in seven months for a 22nd phone call, then you don't know what they're struggling with. You don't know what their medical issues are. You don't know what their financial issues are. You don't know what did what legal difficulties they're having. You don't know nothing. But back in the day, people used to visit each other, talk to each other interact with each other so they knew who's got difficulty who's got ease.

And it even went beyond just the limitation of the family. So miskeen and Sumatra. So McCann Amina Larina Armano. Then if they had done all of this, then this person, they would be from those who truly have faith.

What ourselves a suburb, and they will be the ones that would counsel each other for southern now notice the word somebody here? What does someone have to do with all of the counseling to southern the person in these ayat is someone if we meet if we want to climb up this hill, we're helpful people were helpful people. And when you're helping someone then after you're doing your best to help them then you get to be in a position to tell them you should have suffered. Let's have supper together. Well, it'll be okay. Let me give you strength you can't not do anything and say half southern brother

you know thong McCann Amina, Lavina, Amanu whatever solver solver. You see, after this, all of this, now this person belongs to those who have failed. And now they are the ones who counseled to, to ease to counsel to submit. Actually the way to counsel to somebody is coming in the series of the sorrows. For example Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he is told ALEMI agenda team and for our what was the Cabal and for her for Georgia,

Amelia tema,

you see the connection, he saw, Allah tells his messenger sallallahu alayhi salam, he found you to be an orphan. He found you to be an orphan and later on in the same passage, he says, Now when it comes to the orphan, don't don't be harsh with them. And at the end of that, he said, What am I doing here Matthew Rebecca forehead death and talk about the favor Allah had met your master has done to you. So when you come to an orphan, you say, Hey, listen, I know your pain, because I was an orphan too. And you know what? Allah made it okay? Allah gave me support Allah will give you support to Allah be near Mattila de Kapha. Hadith, somebody who's gone through it can help you by the way,

this idea of people that have gone through the same struggle can relate to each other. This is actually used universally in the world. There are, for example, people that are addicts, they join Alcoholics Anonymous, or who have other support groups, where people have overcome their addictions. And they find strength with each other because they mentioned Oh, I was able to overcome it. You hear somebody else overcame it, it gives you strength, you're able to overcome it also, what else is solid? And then the final word, this is actually what I wanted to really focus on. The reason I chose this hot bar today is because you know, in this season, in Hajj season, we're supposed to

remember the legacy of Ibrahim alayhis salam. And you would imagine I'd give him a hug Baba Rahim Ali, somebody chose not to, but actually it was about Ibrahim Ali salaam, Ibrahim Ali Islam at the end of his legacy. He was worried about all of humanity.

He was the kind of heart that Ibrahim alayhis salam has for humanity, the softness that he has the care that he has, is remarkable. It's incredible, actually, to the point where when angels of Allah come with the command to destroy the nation of loot. They came to destroy the nation of loot, and they stopped by the House of Ibrahim alayhis salam first, and Allah chose to record that in his Quran. This is the same Ibrahim alayhi salam who when Allah told him if kala Hora boo Aslam, Kala Islam to the Robben Island mean I surrender. I don't I'm not arguing back when Allah told him to slaughter his child in the autofilled Manami and nearby Oak I see my dream that I'm slaughtering

you. If Allah tells him to jump into a flame, he'll jump into a flame. If Allah will tell him to slaughter his child and slaughter his child, if Allah will tell him to leave his family in the desert who leave them in the desert, but when he saw people are about to be destroyed, he's worried about the people when the instruction is to someone else he's worried about them and he's argued job you don't have to call me note. He's

debating. He's what he wants them to be forgive somehow can can there's can there be some people who believe among them? Can they be spirit in some possible way? Is that at all possible? This is Ibrahim on Islam. If you study his dollars, if you study his prayers in the Quran, he's praying for all of humanity.

In a 10 minute NASA we elect him. He's referring to a NASA, all of humanity. And so you might believers in these ions, what are they supposed to be after from makan? I mean, Alladhina amanu. What our solar solar. It's as if those two things come together and the culminate, the climax of it all. The moonta who have it all, the acaba of it all is actually what our soul will mark hammer, that's the that's the peak of it. That's the that's the top of this peak, and which is what they counseled each other with, and to Elmer hammer hammer comes from the word Rama, love care consideration. Like, you know, I know I lived in the city. So I know look out for number one is the

way to go. Even when you drive, you're cutting somebody in because if you don't, somebody else will. When you're getting into the subway, you're going to push yourself in everything is about you, you better watch out. Everything's about protecting yourself and yourself, yourself yourself. And you know what that does over time, it makes a person jaded, so they don't see the difficulty of anybody else, I can't care about that.

You can even find to the point where somebody's lying injured on the street and 1000 people walked by, nobody even stopped. Nobody even looked this this is the level a person can reach because they see that all around them their own heart becomes hard. But the man the struggle going up is to keep the heart soft towards other people's struggle. This is why the climax of it, what our soul will Marama will like us humble manner. And these are the people who counseled each other to keep their hearts soft, to show mercy to show care, to be empathetic to try to understand where somebody's coming from, to understand their difficulty, you know, and I will add something. Allahu Taala Arlen

when I think about these ayat, especially the freeing of the neck, when I think about that, right, the expression was used classically for people that are stuck. And they are in the grip of something like the grip of the debt collector, the grip of the slave owner, the grip of the prison guard, right, and they're not being let go. And you have to figure out a way of freeing them. We are living in the age of addiction. There are people that are that are gripped by their addiction to pornography, or their addiction to social media, or their addiction to drugs, or their different kinds of addictions now that are just they're getting a whole addiction to gambling, people have

lost their homes because of their addiction to gambling. They're like they hate themselves. I don't even want to go I don't even know why I go. I don't even want to go to the bar. I don't know why I ended up here all the time. They're crushed in these addictions. And are marhaba instead of saying oh, look at this guy's drinking haram. Yeah, he's doing haram. But why is he doing it? Help him out. We need to have more hammer. We need to figure out how to get this person into rehab. So they can lose that addiction so they can find themselves again. If this person who's fallen into any addiction, any addiction, if that person was beyond hope. If they're just you know fuel for Jahannam

then Allah has no reason to keep them alive. Anybody who's alive means they have hope. You see, there's there's purpose for them to be above the ground. If there's no hope for these people, Allah doesn't have to keep them alive. You see, Allah even says Lotus a yellow when homelands Abdullah vena cava Robinho, Adana Lima and so the fact he said, if if the believers those who have hope in Makkah, were completely separated from those who are hopeless cases, then we would have annihilated those who disbelieve we would have annihilated them. Allah didn't even annihilate fit our own he told Musa they said, I'm gonna maybe he'll turn around. I know who he is.

He told them that. So we you know, part of Mahama is not giving up on somebody's part of Mahama is not just labeling somebody and saying they're done. That's it. This this guy, or you know, he's got an alcohol problem. Oh, this guy does drugs. This guy did this. This guy did that. This guy has a criminal record. This guy went to jail. This guy did and once they've done that, or this woman has done that that's mistake that mistake. Now they're labeled by that mistake. Now they are forever living in that mistake. Oh Rob is you know Rahim. And he's teaching us in these ayat part of our iman, the closer we get to Iman and climb this hill, the more compassion we have for people. The

reason I wanted to highlight this is that it's interesting that for many people, they think the more the closer you get to Allah, the closer you get to Islam, the more committed you are to the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu

Ali Salam, the more you have to become tough,

right, the tougher you have to get. Yeah, we were tough about what is right and what is wrong. We have to be tough about that. There's no way around that. But you don't have to be tough with people.

You have to be you have to show Ramadan people. And you have to understand what you can do to help them to get them up, to pull them out from their difficulty. And that's what these ayat are about. That's a difficult hill to climb, because it's much easier. It's way easier to just pass judgment on someone and let them go. Kalia, you hook up your own law do metaball don't write that's much easier. You don't just use that and just I'm done. I'm done. I you know I've come to her journey. So I established my Hojo on this person I gave them my you know I give them my cameraman my roof and I didn't want I slapped him across the face with some roof. You know? And now I'm done. Now they can

now it's between them and Allah. No, we have to care. You have to genuinely care. May Allah azza wa jal make us people have marhaba like was envisioned by our father Ibrahim alayhis salam and may Allah azza wa jal once again except the Hajj of all of the Hajaj an early robotic to all of you BarakAllahu li Walakum filled for Anil Hakeem when a funny way er combine it with the credit Hakeem